Chunky Glasses, Emory something-or-other, wet his lips, put his fingers in his mouth, and whistled so loudly the dog jumped, almost completing a full somersault. Emory winked at Patrick.
Whoa. Does one ever become immune to hot boys winking? “Thank you.” He almost said Emory, but what if that wasn’t his name? What if it was something else, something trendy and embarrassingly dumb, like Every? “Maisie, Grant, and I wanted to thank you for coming to our little party.”
Maisie’s little voice pierced the quiet. “And Marlene!”
“Yes, and Marlene.” How quickly she’d become part of the family by doing nothing else but resting her chin on his thigh while snoozing. It reminded him of Grant falling asleep in the crook of his shoulder that first night as he told them stories. Suddenly the spotlight felt lonely. He didn’t want to be the center of attention without his ragtag crew. It felt wrong, incomplete. “Come up here, kids. For those of you who don’t know, it’s been a hard year for our family and it’s only July.” Maisie and Grant made their way to him and flanked their uncle; Patrick reached out and took their little hands. He felt like a political candidate, staging his family for maximum effect. He gave each of their hands a squeeze, how small and fragile and warm they felt in his own. How big and strong he felt in comparison. For a rare moment he liked who he was. He liked who he was with them. Not so much a guardian but a guard, someone to stand between their fragile selves and anything else that dared threaten them. “We decided instead of moping our way through a difficult summer, we needed a party. We needed you. ‘Before you can say come and go, and breathe twice; and cry, so, so, each one tripping on his toe, will be here with mop and mowe.’ That’s from The Tempest. I don’t know why that comes to mind. Except I’m tripping over myself trying not to break out in a freakish grin.” He squeezed the kids’ hands again, three or four times, as if he were tapping out the word happiness in Morse code. “The three of us have been muddling our way through. Except tonight. Tonight, instead of tripping on our toes, we shall trip the light fantastic.” He looked down at a confused Maisie and Grant. “It’s an idiom. Anything else I’m missing?”
Grant tugged at one end of his bow tie. “Enjoy our Christmath tree!”
“Yes. A special hat-tip to Jerry Herman, who taught us Guncle Rule number . . . I’ve lost count: When faced with unimaginable loss, we need a little Christmas.”
“Right this very minute!” Emory bellowed. He raised his glass in the air with such infectious enthusiasm, the rest of Patrick’s guests followed suit.
“RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE!”
Patrick looked out over the sea of raised glasses and saw, if only momentarily, the flash of another, happier, life. The Ghost of Christmas Past at work, perhaps, if only it really were Christmas. The spell was broken by the sound of his white lacquer baby grand—an impulse purchase he’d only played once and instead made for an expensive table to display Jonathan Adler knickknacks—and the opening chords of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” He looked up. It was Cassie. She smiled at him, all teeth and gums, the nervous expression of someone asking permission. Sweet Cassie, who still needed to learn it was always better to ask for forgiveness.
But Patrick gave his consent. And the whole crowd turned and burst into joyous song, looking to each other for a cue. Are we really doing this? Yes, I think we are.
And the party raged on like this. Carol after carol, drink after drink. It was the sound of pleasure, of long forgotten joy. Not just for Patrick, or the kids (Maisie settled on the piano bench next to Cassie while Grant sat on top of the piano itself, twirling one end of his bow tie), but for everyone who in the midst of the Hollywood rat race had forgotten to exhale. Gaiety, Patrick thought, smiling. And no one seemed to love it more than Emory, who, in the midst of a FA LA LA LA LA, linked his pinkie finger with Patrick’s, a gesture so intimate it felt like an entire sex act.
They were on the eighth day of Christmas, maids-a-milking, swans-a-swimming, and whatnot, when the front door opened and Clara thrust her head inside. No one noticed, no one turned, no one made anything of this late entrant who wheeled a carry-on suitcase with a red ribbon tied to its handle (not in a Christmas bow, but to distinguish it from other lookalike luggage) across Patrick’s floor, except for gargantuan Adam, who, towering over her, put his meaty arm around Clara just in time to sing, “Fiiiive gold-en rings!”
Patrick caught a glimpse of his sister’s horrified face out of the corner of his eye and his first thought was Can you imagine? and he cackled to himself without missing a lyric. But then he turned and looked more carefully, the words “French hens” flopping off his tongue and plummeting clumsily to the floor like flightless birds. Like, well, French hens. He sheepishly waved, the happy buzz of vodka and Christmas draining from his face along with any color his skin’s pigment held from a life of year-round exposure to sunshine.
Clara, stunned into silence, looked up at Adam, then across at the hulking hand squeezing her opposite shoulder. She looked around the room, recognizing a few faces from magazines in the supermarket checkout, but not many, then down at Marlene, who was jumping at her feet and sniffing her shoes. She next spotted the pink Christmas tree with its sparkling
